28 June 2011

Sex (X) and Violence (R)

"What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman - bound, gagged, tortured, and killed - is also topless?"
- Justice Stephen Breyer in the dissenting opinion to the recent Supreme Court ruling on video games.

Still I am baffled by how this country rates entertainment. If you were to walk in on your neighbor's teenager having sex, you might freak out or blush but you won't be permanently scarred or call the cops. By contrast, if you walked in on this minor torturing or killing someone, you would be psychologically jolted - perhaps permanently scarred - and call the cops. Most people go their whole life without acts of violence yet few go their whole life without sex.

And yet when it comes to entertainment, we rate sex X and rate violence R. Bizarre.

Wouldn't it be a better planet if politicians were forced to resign over war scandals rather than - or at least along with - sex scandals? Obviously I'm warped. Oh well, at least Breyer shares my bafflement.

Oh, and then Jon Stewart does a much better job of illustrating the absurdity of this ruling in this: